White Bear Lake to make attempt at world's largest sundae

Downtown White Bear Lake should be awash in ice cream June 20, as 575 volunteers scramble to assemble the world's longest sundae.

Best yet, the finished treat will need about 3,700 volunteers to eat it.

Set to run a three-block length of Fourth Street during the city's weekly Marketfest, the sundae will require more than 200 gallons of vanilla ice cream, about 3,700 cherries, 100 cans of whipped cream and hundreds of gallons of chocolate sauce, said organizer John Lupo, owner of Grandma's Bakery.

Where did Lupo get the idea to build an enormous frozen treat?

"I don't know. It's fun. I love ice cream. Apparently a lot of other people in White Bear do too," he said.

The effort started without a budget, he said, and so far the labor and ingredients -- ice cream from the Chocolate Shoppe in Madison, Wis., chocolate sauce from Ghirardelli in San Francisco and strawberries from the Pine Tree Apple Orchard -- have all been donated.

The finished sundae should be just over 1,000 feet long, Lupo said, more than 300 feet longer than the current record holder -- a 670-foot, one-inch sundae built in Cavalier, N.D., last year.

The tables and dish that will hold the sundae will be built over a two-hour period beginning at about 5:30 p.m., Lupo said, with the actual sundae getting scooped at about 7:30 p.m. by groups that have sponsored 10-foot sections. He said it should be finished, with cherries on top, in just six or seven minutes.

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Organizers hope to raise more than $10,000 for the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life of the White Bear Lake Area, Lupo said.

The event still needs volunteers to provide crowd control, Lupo said. Interested folks can email him at john@grandmasbakery.com.